Strasbourg shooting: the toll of the Christmas market is getting heavier
Paris
CNN
—
A fifth person has died of their injuries following the attack on the Strasbourg Christmas market on Tuesday, the Paris prosecutor’s office told CNN on Sunday.
A gunman burst into the market on Tuesday evening as crowds shopped for holidays, killing three people and injuring 13 others. The fourth victim, Antonio Megalizza, an Italian journalist on life support since the attack, died on December 14, French authorities told CNN.
CNN BFMTV Affiliate reported that a 45-year-old man visiting from Thailand, an Afghan father of three who had lived in France for 15 years and a man from Strasbourg also died in Tuesday’s market attack.
Authorities are calling the mass shooting a terrorist attack. Police killed the gunman Thursday evening near the market.
The shooter, Cherif Chekatt, was known to prison authorities for his radicalization and for his proselytizing behavior in detention in 2015, Paris prosecutor Remy Heitz said, adding that he had been incarcerated several times in the past. French prosecutors said the suspect shouted the Arabic phrase “Allahu Akbar”, which means “God is the greatest”, at the time of the attack.
Chekatt, 29, had a long criminal history in Germany and Switzerland for thefts, burglaries and violence. However, the Swiss and German police did not put him on a list of radical Islamists, despite the number of crimes committed in these countries. His father, mother and two brothers were questioned, a source familiar with the investigation told CNN. On Thursday, five people were in custody.
On Tuesday, authorities said Chekatt entered the perimeter of the market via the city’s Corbeau Bridge and began shooting and stabbing passers-by on Rue des Orfèvres.
Anti-terrorist police flooded the market and tried to arrest the shooter. He exchanged gunfire with security forces and injured his arm. The shooter then jumped into a taxi and fled, Heitz said.
In the following days, citizens of the town in eastern France, near the German border, lived under a curfew, and the national security threat level was at an all-time high.” emergency terrorist attack”.
The massive manhunt for Chekatt involved police, military and counter-terrorism specialists from three European countries. French Interior Minister Christophe Castaner said police recognized a man who looked like Chekatt walking down the street in the Neudorf district of Strasbourg on Thursday evening and approached him. He opened fire on officers when they tried to question him, he said.
Strasbourg’s famous Christmas market is one of the oldest in Europe and attracts millions of visitors each year. Many visited the market – which has since reopened – to light candles and lay flowers in tribute to the victims.